A woman’s abduction from a busy Hong Kong street revives memories of past kidnappings, including when tycoons were targets for notorious gangsters
- Kidnapping is nothing new in Hong Kong and a woman snatched from a busy Tsim Sha Tsui has revived memories of the city’s history of abductions
- Major cases spanning more than 30 years underline kidnappings in the city, often accompanied by huge ransom demands
Police later found the woman, who was unhurt, in a car at Heng On Estate in Ma On Shan, about 21km (13 miles) away from the scene of her abduction.
The force on Tuesday arrested three people and said it was suspected the incident revolved around a dispute over HK$100,000 (US$12,786). It added that the alleged abductors and the victim knew each other.
The case brought back memories of some of the most notorious abductions and kidnappings in Hong Kong over the years, which we highlight here.
1. Abduction near the gates of Hong Kong prison
A woman was pulled into a car by four people, including a 16-year-old, at a minibus stop just outside Stanley Prison in December 2022.
The suspects escaped despite efforts by two prison officers and passers-by to stop them.
One prison officer was seen in a widely circulated video clip approaching the vehicle, but an attacker pushed him away. Another officer came to his aid, but the video ended soon after he arrived on the scene.
The woman was rescued later the same day.
The four suspects, aged 17 to 38, pleaded guilty in the District Court earlier this month to unlawful confinement and common assault. The case was adjourned to May 23 for sentence.
Court proceedings revealed that one of the defendants, a decoration worker, had obtained a mainland bank account with the help of the victim.
The account was frozen soon after he transferred half a million yuan to the account.
The man believed the woman had scammed him and decided to kidnap her after she visited the prison.
Woman abducted in Hong Kong shopping district found unhurt after citywide search
2. Toddler as target
Police rescued a 19-month-old girl and her domestic helper after the pair were bundled into a car near Cyberport in Pok Fu Lam in December 2021.
The two were later locked inside a shipping container in Pat Heung.
The abduction happened as the helper took the toddler to a preschool near her home at the luxury Residence Bel-Air estate.
Two men jumped out of a black car, grabbed the two and drove them to a village in Yuen Long, where they were forced into the container.
But the helper, 39, managed to take the girl and climb through a window onto the roof of the container when the man who stayed behind to guard them left.
The jobless defendant was last month sentenced to nine years and four months behind bars.
3. The bookseller that went missing
Lee Bo, a major shareholder in Causeway Bay Books, which offered a range of titles banned on the mainland, went missing on December 30, 2015.
Lee’s wife told police she had received two phone calls from Lee where he spoke Mandarin instead of Cantonese and both calls were made from the same phone number in Shenzhen, just across the border with mainland China.
Police, however, found there was no record of Lee having left the city and carried out citywide searches for him.
The incident sparked fears that he had been abducted and taken to the mainland by security officials or triads.
Hong Kong police arrest 3 over abduction of woman in busy shopping district
Chinese authorities confirmed on January 18, 2016 that Lee had been detained in mainland China.
Hong Kong police said two months later that Lee had returned to the city.
The force said Lee had told them he had gone to the mainland to help in a court case involving a friend and that he had not been abducted.
But he gave no more details about his apparent disappearance from the city.
4. Bossini heiress got taken away from home
Queenie Rosita Law, granddaughter of late textiles tycoon Law Ting-pong who founded the clothing brand Bossini, was abducted from her home by a mainland Chinese gang in 2015.
She was hidden away in a mountain cave until family members paid a HK$28 million (US$3.6 million) ransom.
Ten gangsters were later arrested in the city and mainland China and one was later jailed in Hong Kong for 12 years.
Eight others, including a Hongkonger originally from the mainland, were given prison sentences ranging from 22 months to 15 years by a Shenzhen court.
Most of the ransom money was later recovered, except for HK$110,000 believed to have ben already been spent by the kidnappers.
5. High-profile kidnappings of tycoons
Cheung and his accomplices, armed with AK-47 assault rifles, handguns and with four of them wearing bulletproof vests, abducted Li as he commuted from his office in Central to his home on Deep Water Bay Road in Southern district in May 1996.
He was released after the family paid a HK$1 billion ransom after reportedly being held for one night.
Cheung kidnapped Kwok as he travelled to his Beach Road home in Repulse Bay in September the next year.
Kwok was released unharmed six days later, after a ransom of HK$600 million was paid.
Cheung was later arrested on the mainland and executed along with four of his gang members after trial.
6. The forever disappeared Wang
His captors demanded HK$467 million in ransom, and HK$260 million was paid.
But Wang, who was 56, was never seen again.
One of the later defendants charged in connection with Wang’s disappearance revealed in court the next year that the tycoon was dumped in the sea by the gang after the boat they were on was chased by a Chinese navy ship off the Hong Kong coast.
A total of 12 people were arrested in Hong Kong and Taiwan between March 1991 and July 1997 in connection with the case.
They were later given sentences of between five years and life behind bars.
Wang was officially declared dead in 1999, but wife Nina Wang never gave up hope of finding him alive.
Her privately funded search for her husband was said to have continued even after her own death in 2007.
